Starting from Zero

Book 2, Chapter 10

Phantom

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I looked around nervously and saw nothing. But suddenly my right hand raised up on its own, and moved my sword towards my neck. I quickly used my left hand to grasp the blade, panicked.

Of course they're both my own hands. From a third person's view I must look like to be performing some sort of weird dance. Lucky sensed something nearby but couldn't see it. He(*) angrily broke a tree in half with a tail sweep.

The broken tree must have disturbed the assailant, the force on my right hand disappeared and I regained control. Looks like its hiding in the trees.

I looked at Lucky. "Clear the whole area!"

With a dragon roar, leaves began to fall like snow. After a powerful tail swipe, those waist-wide trees around us all fell to the ground. With the trees gone, a black figure flashed in the air, then vanished. The area is very quiet now, I can almost hear my own heartbeat. Lucky is panting heavily beside me. That move drained him(*) a lot since Lucky is still considered a child. It would be better if Lucky is level 200 and can use dragon fire!

Obviously the enemy is still nearby cause I can feel the killing intent. But whoever it is he/she must be good at hiding. I started to gather magic power and use a very practical support type dark spell -- Intimidate. This spell intimidate the enemy with pure imposing aura, causing enemies around the caster to lose some Attack, Movement Speed and HP & Mana regen speed. But the mental pressure is also a good way to flush enemies out of hiding. One important feature of such support spells is that they don't need a target and they affect a huge area.

My level-2 Intimate spell (the ring gave me skill levels) worked, the leaves around Lucky's feet moved. Lucky instantly threw a lightning and burned the spot smoking, but it didn't hit.

A miniature black twister appeared in front of me and then vanished quickly. It showed itself for just less than two seconds. Then there's a white, half transparent...thing, left behind the twister. Out of instinct, I slashed it with my sword but it didn't hit anything. The white figure rushed at me, and then disappeared into my body, like water gets absorbed into sponge. Then my hands lost control again. I charged at Lucky with my sword raised. I tried hard but couldn't control myself, so I could only shout at Lucky:

"Get away! This thing controlled my body!"

With a wing flap, Lucky wisely chose to fly into the air. I can't reach him on the ground!

Just as I'm feeling good about how Lucky got out of danger, the thing moved my body and bashed against a tree. With a THUMP, my head slammed into it. That hurts! I'm seeing stars all around me!

It didn't stop, and ordered me to slit my own throat again. Out of desperation, I shouted at Lucky: "Quick! Lightning! Stun! Knock me out!"

Lucky immediately cast a lightning straight at my head. I can feel that Lucky tried to limit the power, though. The electricity caused my whole body to go numb and I feel like vomiting. I definitely will try to avoid getting shocked again.

As I'm hit by the lightning, a white figure covered in electric arcs emerged from my body.

Ignoring the dumbness, I tried to move my already stiff tongue and shouted at Lucky again: "Do it! Lightning! It's weak to electricity!"

Lucky didn't fail to qualify as a top-leveled boss monster, a serial of lightnings went down without stopping. I'd like to help but there's no way I can move a finger now.

The white mist is shocked rolling on the ground (actually it doesn't have a fixed shape at all), then it disappeared in another of those mini twister. I quickly ordered: "Keep it up! It's escaping!"

A giant chain lightning fell onto the spot where the figure disappeared. I thought it missed when the attack fell on the ground, but then there's electric arc, with a lump of "air" trapped inside. The air turned into the white figure again, with visible electricity moving all over it. Looks like it took quite a beating.

Just as I'm feeling victorious, the electric arc parted towards me. Pzzzzzt! Not expecting the shock, all the hairs on my body stood up.

I kinda lost my mind from all the shocks, and roared at Lucky: "Shock it! Use your most powerful lightning move! Don't stop! Shock it till it's dead!!"

Lucky thought I just wanted to take my anger out, so he cast another really big lightning at the still-covered-in-arcs figure, and struck it jumping into the air.

"Wait! Wait!! I lost! I surrender!! Stop shocking me!" The while figure started talking all of a sudden.

Lucky glanced at me. I ordered, with a devilish tone: "Don't spare it. Strike!"

Then more lightnings went pouring down like raindrops. The white figure ran about in panic and shouted: "Wait! Please wait!! Stop shoc--I can--Ouch! I can--can be your companion! Ow! P-Please! Yarrrr!" It's voice is now trembling due to all the electric shocks!

"Hold it!" I raised my hand and stopped Lucky's attacks. The white figure slumped on the ground like a puddle. Its edge is still shivering. "You will be my companion?"

"Yes!" It answered while panting heavily.

"Just...what are you?"

"I'm a mutated monster."

"Mutated? So you're the only one who can control others like that?" I was worrying about encountering more of these guys. That ability was really scary!

"There's none! I'm the only one. Others in my clan can only go invisible but they can't do what I just did!" The figure seems rested now. Lucky prepared another giant lightning nearby, to prevent it from trying to escape.

"So what's the level of your clan?"

"They are 177. But I'm now 600 after the mutation."

"You're 600? You didn't look that strong!" Well he was quite powerful, but that was nowhere like level 600!

"600 is my rank level(**). I'm only level 197 now, far from reaching my final state. Like that Mr dragon over there, he's a level 1000 monster but haven't reached level 100 at the moment right?"

"How did you know that?"

"I ate hundreds of those lightnings and am still alive! A level 200 dragon is enough to finish me in one shot but you guys took so long!"

"That makes sense. But I want to make sure you're worthy enough to be my companion! You know I can't change companion once I determined one right?"

"Of course! My main abilities are Merge and Blink!" The figure began to display the skills. With three blinks he immediately appeared behind my back.

"That is quite nice trick! But what good will it do to me?"

"Of course it'll do good! If I Merge with you, you will learn my skills. In other words you will be able to Blink too! And Blink is my instinct skill, it doesn't cost MP!"

"That sounds nice!" I'm starting to get convinced. "Lucky?"

Lucky nodded towards me, looks like he agreed. I got many companion slots left anyway!

"Ok then!" I started to use Capture on the white figure, and succeeded after a dozen tries, the figure turned into a white companion egg and fell on the ground. A system notification followed up: "Congratulations, player Ziri has become the first player to capture the level 600 boss monster, the Spirit Mutant. Receiving 3 Skill Points."

"Oh? The Spirit Mutant? And he's a boss! But why didn't the system give me equipment as reward?"

I performed the mastership ritual, named him "Phantom", then the egg cracked open. Some white fluid came out, and instantly disappeared when it reached my body. A voice came alive inside my brain, it feels like I'm talking with myself.

"Master, this is Phantom! Now I'll show you how to use my skills! Please look at a spot 1 meter away, and imagine yourself moved there."

"One meter?"

"Yeah. I'm only level 1, can't manage long distances yet."

"How far can you do it when you reach your final form?"

"When that happens I'll be able to blink within an area of 10 kilos, and almost without intervals. But now you need to wait for 30 secs between each blink!"

"Fine. You're my companion now, there's no refund anyway!" I started to stare at a place a meter from me. When I finished my thought, I felt a whirlwind and then I'm standing at where I looked at. Yes this could come in handy!

"Master! Now I'll tell you how to Hide. After I Merge with you, you just need to think about "Hide" to conceal yourself!"

I followed his words. With a thought in the mind, I blended into the air.

Phantom exclaimed with excitement, "That's a success! But remember, you can't Hide forever (***), with my level now I can only let your hide for a minute, any attack or movement will break the effect. Plus you need to wait for 15 sec before using Hide again! Also, Hide is ineffective against players and monster who are 50 or more levels above you, oh and, you can be detected with Detection spell!"

"That's so inconvenient!" I'm starting to doubt that Phantom was just exaggerating his abilities!

"That's because of my low level. It will become better with higher levels. Hide ability when I reach ultimate level can stay for 12 hours, and you will be able to move slowly as long as you don't do anything too obvious. Ultimate Hide has no cooldown. You can just hide again if discovered. And it will fool enemies up to 100 levels above you, and has lower chance to get caught by Detection spell."

"That's what I'm saying. Do you have any other skills?" I want to squeeze out the last bit of his capabilities. He occupied one of my slot after all!

"I can absorb some damage. 1% for the moment, but to a maximum of 50% in the future! How about that! Just think about it, others will only deal half of the normal damage to you! Isn't that awesome??"

Phantom is beginning to lose himself into bragging!

"Oh! There's more! I can perform mind control. The effect will depend on the level difference between me and the target."

"The skill you used to control me into bumping a tree and cutting myself?" That was horrible. I'm still terrified of it!

"Yes. Master is level 70 while I was 197, that was why the control was so smooth, almost total control! Even if I can't control the target, I can still easily dampen their movement! This move is best when battling against ranged classes, like those archers who got high Dexterity!"

"Good against archers? Really?" I absolutely hate archers when playing other games!

"Of course! Now imagine, what's the most important for an archer? To hit the target! With me messing with their body how the heck do they aim?? And those mages, I just wait for them to drop their guard and let them throw a big spell at nowhere and drain their MP empty! "

Even I am becoming complacent listening to Phantom's ideas. I think his biggest ability is flattering, he's so good at it!

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(*)I'm really not good at dealing with details like "he" "she" "it" when it comes to describing something non-human. So forgive me if something looks out of place. Like this one.

Yes, Lucky should be a gentleman dragon (spoiler?). The author haven't emphasized this but I don't think I should keep calling Lucky "it".

(**)Please consider this as "maximum level". Players can reach 1000 but monsters got different level limits.

(***)Why does this sound so familiar??